In his first week as President of the United States of America, Donald Trump has demonstrated a callous disregard for women’s rights by reinstating and extending the so-called global gag rule, a policy which will prevent all organisations receiving US foreign aid for health from including abortion referrals or information within their programmes. Not only […]
donald trump
Posted inEquality, General, News/Politics
Thank you, Mr Trump!
Dear Donald Trump, Thank you! In the days following the election I have seen numerous articles highlighting the follies of your choices, the irresponsibility of your comments, the virulence of your campaigning and the divisiveness of your words. In spite of all this, I would like to take a moment and say thank you. Thank […]
Posted inNews/Politics
From Hitler to Zuma to Trump: We are simply bad at democracy
“The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.” This is supposedly a quote from Winston Churchill. Whether it is a real quote or simply a quote birthed from the internet, the statement holds true. When it comes to mass governance the sad truth is that humanity is kind of bad […]
Posted inGeneral
Trump’s America: No country for old women
I have managed a monosyllabic email and two cups of tea this morning. Typing this is agony. Now I know that the sun comes up and shines even on the day of the apocalypse. I didn’t know that yesterday. So this is a learning experience. Welcome to America’s 1948, where the sun is shining. With […]
Posted inEnvironment, General
Why one should NOT vote for Trump in America this Tuesday
There are many reasons why voters in the United States should not vote for the Republican candidate, Donald Trump, on Tuesday, November 8. These include the fact that he has, on several occasions, shown himself to have a questionable attitude towards women, and generally towards a variety of minority groups in America, at a time […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Is it time for a third party shake up in US politics?
By Caitlin Dean My husband got up on his soap box last week and now he won’t get down. He is angry, shocked and wants change. Why is he so rankled? Well of course, it’s this US election and more precisely, voting and what he sees as an unfair process. Dear husband’s frustrations with the […]
Posted inNews/Politics
South Africans’ sneering antipathy to Trump is misplaced
The sneering antipathy and moral condescension of seemingly the entire South Africa towards Donald Trump, the Republican Party’s presumptive nominee for the United States presidency, makes me chuckle. We are, after all, the nation that elected Jacob Zuma – a man who is as morally dubious and certainly far less competent than Trump – to […]
Posted inGeneral
I’ve seen Donald Trump and he isn’t pretty
By Caitlin Dean When Donald Trump triumphantly descended from that escalator in Trump Towers to announce his candidacy for president, I was bemused and disinterested. I had not been living in the US that long and although I was familiar with the name Trump and what it meant, I knew little about him beyond his […]
Posted inGeneral, News/Politics
The ‘perversion’ of Donald Trump’s popularity
A lot has been written speculatively about American presidential hopeful Donald Trump’s popularity, which has seemed surprising to many if his outrageous statements about women or about Mexicans are taken into account. Until recently when he did an egg-dance on the question of women and abortion, trying to correct what he had suddenly realised had […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Birds of a political feather
Politicians with competing ideologies like to think of themselves as fundamentally different: socialist versus capitalist, libertarian as opposed to authoritarian, etc. Given, however, the universality of the human condition, they are actually often more alike in their personal foibles and personalities than they would care to acknowledge. Or have us to notice. For example, there […]
Posted inBusiness, General, Media, News/Politics
Scotland 5. Donald Trump 0. What price America?
Author and humourist PG Wodehouse once wrote that “it is never difficult to distinguish between a Scotsman with a grievance and a ray of sunshine”. He was absolutely right when it came to American presidential hopeful and property mogul Donald Trump’s attempts to insinuate himself into the Scottish culture with his £750 million (R15.9 billion) golf estate […]
Posted inGeneral, News/Politics
The Donald adds an Obama-like spark to 2016 race
By Perry Munzwembiri After years of “Obama-mania”, following President Barack Obama’s brilliance on the campaign trail, the 2016 White House race just needed something that would add the “X-factor” to the campaign. At first, it seemed Donald Trump brought the “Y-factor” — as in — why is he even running for president? Every day, however, […]